The CCRI Knights men’s basketball team hosted the Quinsigamond Community College Wyverns on Saturday afternoon. A balanced attack pushed the Knights forward to a 20-point victory, 82-62. The win improves their season record to 6-2 record overall and 5-0 in Region XXI play.

The last game before Thanksgiving break offered CCRI an opportunity to head into the holiday with a perfect 5-0 regional record. Quinsigamond had a difficult start to the season, going 1-3 and hoped to turn their season around against CCRI.

The Knights started well, taking a 13-5 lead in three and a half minutes. CCRI used a full court press early to force Quinsigamond into 13 total turnovers and helped provide even more offense for CCRI. The lead was expanded to 18 points 10 minutes into the half, 29-11. Heavy rotation for the Knights kept fresh legs to run the full court press and gave options on offense. At halftime, CCRI led Quinsigamond 51-29.

The second half was a matter of seeing out the game and doing more of the same that had worked in the first half. Continuing the high pressure and rotation of players paved the way to a comfortable 82-62 win for CCRI.

The offense was led by sophomore Dylan Durante (Johnston) with 15 points as he shot 4-4 from beyond the arc and added two steals and one assist. Freshman Mikey Gamble (Hartford, CT) registered 14 points, including four 3-pointers, five assists and one rebound. Freshman Mitchel Noresca (East Providence) ripped down a team leading 11 rebounds while adding nine points and one assist. Freshman Tyreek Davis (Torrington, CT) did well on both sides of the ball as he scored eight points and provided four rebounds, three steals, two assists and one block.

Head Coach Rick Harris commented, "Very nice week for our young guys. We made steady progress all week and were fortunate to win our third game of the week today. The catalyst for our play seemed to be our full court pressure defense which besides disrupting our opponent gave us the extra shots we needed to jumpstart our offense. Today, I was most pleased with our 24 assists, but 13 turnovers are a little high but we seem to be improving in that area. We are happy with our 5-0 league record but the team knows we must work hard daily and continue to get better in order to be prepared for the many challenging games on our schedule."

The CCRI Knights men’s basketball will next be in action on Tuesday, Dec. 3rd at 7:00 p.m. as they travel to Haverhill, Massachusetts to face off with the Northern Essex Community College Knights.

For all things CCRI Athletics, be sure to follow @CCRIAthletics on Instagram and Twitter.

The Community College of Rhode Island, New England’s largest comprehensive community college, enrolls nearly 15,000 students in credit courses and thousands more in non-credit and job training classes. Its athletic program boasts 12 varsity programs and an academic support program for all student-athletes.